The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1887-08-11
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HEAVEN PORTRAYED.
What Those Who Have Gone Before
Are Doing.


An-Dr. Talmage Will Visit 4 ."
Friends in Heaven-'I Give Al oil. 'r
Notice."
THE HAMPToNs, July 3l.-The 'ev. I.
De Witt Talmages sermon for s" o.n-
ing was on the "Employmen # .' m"
and his text, Eek ell j., /: "Now, came
to pass in the thirtieth year, M { 10 "A
month, in the fifth day OF Tie Il. .,
as l was among the captiy Ov ne
river of Cbebar, that the hea en wete
opened"
Ezekiel, with others, had been exla-
tTiated, and while in foreign slavery AS
standing on the banks OF lie royal canal,
which he and other serfs had been cuu-
demned to dig by the order OF Ne uchnd-
nezzar-this royal canal, in the text, called
the river of Chebar the ilIustrIous exile
had visions of Heaven. Indeed, il IS al
most always so that the br ghtest visions
of Heaven come not to those who are on
mountain top of prosperity, but TO some
John on desolate Patmos, or to some aul
in Mamertine dungeon, or to some Eek ell
standing on the banks of a ditch he had
been compelled to dig-yea, TO the weary,
to the heart broken, to those whom sorrow
has banished.
The text is very particular to give us the
exact time Of the vision. 1t was in the
thirtieth year, and in the fourth month,
and in the fifth day of the month. SO YOU
have had visions of earth you shall never
forget. You remember the year, you re-
member the day, you remember the hour.
Why may not we have some such vision
this morning, and it be in the sixth month
and in the fourth day of the month?
The question is often silently asked,
though perhaps never audibly propounded:
| "What are our departed Christian friends
doing now?" The question is more easily
| answered than you might perhaps suppose
Though there has come no recent lntelll-
gence from the heavenly city, and we seem
| dependent upon the story of eighteen CEN
| turies ago, still / think we may from
strongest inference decide what are the
present occupations of our transferred
kinsfolk.
After God has made nature he never
eradicates the chief characteristics Of its
| temperament. You never knew man
phlegmatic in temperament to become
| sanguine in temperament. You never
knew man sanguine in temperament 10
become phlegmatic in temperament. Con-
version plants new principles in the soul,
| but Paul and John are just as different
| from each other after conversion rs they
were different from each other before con-
| version. If conversion does not eradicate
| the prominent characteristics of the tenn
! perament neither will death eradicate them
You have, then, only by sum in SUBJ
| traction and a sum in addition to decide
what are the emp'oyments Of your departed
friends in the better world. You are tc
subtract from them all earthly grossnesF
and add all earthly goodness, and then yor
| are to come to the conclusion that they
are doing now in Heaven what in their bes
moments they did on earth. The reason
that so many people never start fol
Heaven is because they could not stand l
if thev got there il it should turn out tt
be the rigid and formal place some people
photograph ii.
We like to come to church, but we would
not want to stay here to next Christmas
We like to hear the halleluiah chorus, bu
we would not want to hear it all the time
for fifty centuries. 1t might be on somt
great occasion it would be possibly com
Portable to wear q crown of gold weighing
several pounds, but it would be an aiIiic
ton to wear such a crown forever. II
other words, we run the descriptions o
Heaven into the ground while we make
that which was intended as especial anC
| celebrative 10 be the exclusive employment
of the Heaven. You might as we'll, i
| asked to describe the habits Of American
society, describe Decoration Day, or
Fourth of July, or an autumnNl Thanks
| giving as though it were all the time tina
way.
/ am not going to speculate in regard t
the future world, but | must by inevitabl
laws of inference and deduction and com
mon sense conclude that in Heaven we
will be Just as different from each othe
MS we are now different, and hence tina
there will be at least as many different EN-
ployments in the celestial world as ther
are employments here. Christ is 10 be tn
| great love, the great Joy, the great rapture
the great worship of Heaven; but will tha
abolish employment? No more than low
| on earth-paternal, filial, fraternal, con
| iugal love, abolish earthly occupation.
In the first place, | remark that all thos
of our departed Christian friends who OF
earth found great Joy in the fine arts ar
now indulging their tastes in the sam
direction. On earth they had their glad
| dest pleasures amid pictures and statu
ary, and in the study of the laws o
light and shade and perspective. Hav
YOU any idea that that atfiuence Of facult
at death collapsed and perished? Why SC
when there is more for them TO look al
and they have keener appreciation Of tn
beautiful, and they stand amid the yer
looms where the sunsets and the rainbow
and the spring mornings are woven?
Are you so obtuso as to suppose thG
because the painter drops his easel and tn
sculptor his chisel and the engraver hi
knife that therefore that taste, which h
was enlarging and intensifying for fort
or fifty years, is entirely obliterated
| fbaua frianlc Of opt n
earth wofked in Goarser material and wit
imperfect brain and frail hand. Now the
have carried their art into larger libertie
and into wider circumference. They ar
at their old business yet, but without tn
fatigues, without the limitations, withou
hindrances of the terrestrial studio.
Raphael could now improve upon hi
masterpiece of "lIichNel the Archangel
now that he has seen him, and could i'm
prove upon his masterpiece of the "IIol
Family" now that he has visited then
Michael Angelo could better present tn
"Last Judgment" after he has seen it
flash and heard the rumbling battering
rams of its thunder. Exquisite color
here, graceful lines here, powerful CHA
roscuro here; but l am persuaded that tn
grander studios and the brighter gallerie
are higher up by the winding marble stair
of the sepulcher, and that Turner an
Holman, Hunt and Rembrandt, and Titin
and Paul Veronese, if they exercised savin
faith in the Christ whom they portraye
upon the canvas, are painters yet bu
their strength of faculty multiplied te
thousand fold. The reason that God too
away their eye and their hand and thei
brain was that he might give them some
thing more timber, more wleldy, NOR
skillful, more multiplitant.
DO not, therefore, be melancholy anon
the tapestries and the brio a-brac, and th
embroideries and the water coors, an
| tbe works of art which vour departe